Cloud Migration Challenges in 2023

Cloud migration has many benefits, and few will argue that it is not worth the effort and investment. In spite of this, organizations transitioning to the cloud will encounter challenges along the way.

Nevertheless, knowing the common pain points of cloud migration can go a long way toward helping make your organization’s cloud journey more seamless and less problematic.

The cloud can stimulate profit growth by up to 11.2% in organizations that migrate at least 60% of their IT operations and systems to the cloud. It is impossible to beat total reliance on on-premise computing!

However, if you're implementing this level of digital transformation internally or with the help of cloud migration service providers, you'll encounter some prevalent challenges. Here are some statistics to look at: 

• The failure rate of 50% of projects is high
• Approximately 56% of CIOs encounter compliance and security risks
• Approximately 55% of business leaders are not able to optimize their processes to fit clearly defined business objectives
• CIOs fail to plan adequately for migration 44% of the time

Based on the preceding trends, nearly half of IT-driven organizations are battling cloud migration challenges. In this article, we revise the steps of the cloud migration process, highlight the common cloud migration problems alongside their solutions, and the benefits your business reaps in the long haul. Let's start!

What is Cloud migration?

Cloud migration is when you move your computer stuff, like apps, data, and systems, from your own place to a cloud-based service, like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. It's important because it can save you money, make your work more flexible, and help you focus on what you're good at instead of worrying about maintaining servers and stuff. Plus, it's a lot easier to work with people from all over the place, and the cloud has better security and protection for your data. Basically, cloud migration is becoming super popular because it can make your work easier and more efficient!

Cloud Migration Strategies: Why are they crucial for businesses?

Cloud migration strategies describe an organization moving data and other business processes to the cloud from its on-premises infrastructure. The strategy involves defining the goals and objectives of the migration, selecting the appropriate cloud service provider, deciding on the type of cloud deployment model (public, private, or hybrid), choosing the migration approach (lift-and-shift, re-platforming, or refactoring), and identifying the necessary tools and resources required to carry out the migration process.

The migration strategy should also include assessing the organization's infrastructure, security and compliance requirements, budget, and timeline. A well-planned cloud migration strategy can help organizations to achieve their desired business outcomes, such as improved scalability, flexibility, cost savings, and enhanced security and performance.

How does the cloud migration process work?

Before making a decision, the business must fully understand its role. The transition to the cloud is transforming your entire business, and you must first take the entire journey through cloud services. It will allow for identifying capabilities and activities required at each stage of successful cloud migration. Cloud computing is far from a simple technical exercise.

Why Cloud Migration is Important to Business Growth?

Cloud migration involves the deployment of digital assets and resources to the cloud where the moved data is unattended. Cloud-based applications are becoming more popular as technology has exploded and become increasingly popular among business users. There's no time to think of migration into the clouds. Smart application development and user interfaces - a new industry standard - promote cloud computing success and attract non-cloud users with this disruptive business-changing step.

A Guide to Successful Cloud Migration

Taking a cloud migration strategy to the cloud successfully requires a unique solution since there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Due to every organization's individual needs and goals, many factors must be considered. 

Here are some of the steps you should be aware of before beginning the migration process: 

Make a plan

A migration journey should begin with a thorough evaluation of the organization's characteristics and goals. You should never lose sight of your company's core business goals regarding cloud migration strategies since they are designed to increase productivity, improve communication, and enhance customer satisfaction. 

To achieve the desired results, planning also involves knowing the existing assets (human and technological).   

Modeling your cloud in the right way

Every company has its own requirements for cloud computing, which must be clearly defined. Each provider offers various services, and it is vital to have the right information to make the best decision.  

Another alternative is to hire consulting services to help your company develop a precise strategy for migrations and deployments.  

These are some of the categories of cloud computing services you should be aware of:   

• IaaS has the essential components of cloud computing and provides access to network functions, computers (virtual or dedicated hardware), and data storage space. Offers flexibility and management control over IT resources. 
• PaaS allows organizations to dispense with managing the underlying infrastructure and focus on deploying and managing applications. This reduces maintenance tasks to keep applications running. 
• Serverless computing allows applications to be built without needing infrastructure management, but both models have differences. For example, serverless computing (which does not imply that there are no servers) enables faster scalability because it does not require developer configuration. Another distinction is that this model is pay-as-you-go rather than a flat fee like PaaS. 
• SaaS offers a complete product run managed by the service provider. 

Select a Cloud provider that meets your needs

When hiring a cloud service provider, we are entrusting some of the most valuable assets of a company: data and applications. That is why it is essential to take these aspects into account before making the purchase:  

• Reliability
• Security and compliance with data protection policies  
• Legal protections and SLAs  
• Performance  
• Disaster recovery  
• Support 

Develop a team to make the project a success

Once the plan is defined, you will need the right professionals to execute it smoothly. A team of developers with the proper knowledge and experience will increase the chances of a successful migration. 

These are some of the critical positions an organization needs to make a successful migration to the cloud:   

• Project Manager 
• Solution Architect 
• DevOps Engineer 
• Cloud Administrator 
• Cloud Security Manager 

Best Practices for safe Cloud Migration

Invest in security

Security is the most crucial aspect of cloud migration. The cloud can only be protected if data and workloads are protected carefully. Customers and providers share responsibility for cloud security, as customers are responsible for cloud infrastructure security, and providers are responsible for cloud security. 

Some of the issues to consider when thinking about cloud security are:  

• Governance  
• API vulnerability  
• Regulatory and compliance requirements  
• Disaster recovery    

Establish your goals

Migration to the cloud is not a goal, just as digital transformation processes are not a goal in themselves. Making the process more efficient requires companies to analyze its benefits and challenges. Documenting each stage of the process and communicating progress to the entire team are two other essential aspects to keep in mind. 

Think about outsourcing

Outsourcing providers can help organizations move to the cloud, and they can also recruit the best talent for critical roles in the application development process. Professionals with experience and skills in these technologies are crucial to the successful migration process. 

What is the best provider for your business?

There is a wide variety of cloud products and services with high security, quality, and performance standards. The differences between the benefits of the world's leading providers are very subtle. To make the best decision and hire the service that best suits your needs, you will have to analyze each company's pros and cons in detail. 

The following are some of the features of the leading cloud platform providers that share most of the market share: 

AWS

Amazon Web Service is the number 1 provider in the market. It offers excellent flexibility and ease of use. It lets you choose the operating system, programming language, web application platform, database, or other services. Its flexibility lets you focus resources on other core business aspects instead of infrastructure. 

AWS services also are recognized for agility and scalability thanks to a wide range of tools that allow you to always have access to resources and storage. 

AWS employs a comprehensive approach to infrastructure protection, including physical operational and software measures. And has certifications and accreditations to manage companies' IT infrastructure in a secure and long-term way. 

Azure

It is the second-largest platform in the market. It is a cloud service suitable for companies and incredibly convenient for those who have contracted the entire Microsoft ecosystem. 

The pricing scheme shows that it is up to 5 times cheaper than other clouds precisely because the optimization scheme is very efficient. 

Azure can provide both a public and private cloud in a computing environment that allows your applications to be shared between them. It will enable the flexibility and convenience to customize the needs that best suit your business, and you can feel secure whether you choose a SaaS or PaaS route.  

Cybersecurity has an AI system with the ability to prevent threats. It also allows you to encrypt backup information and data transferred to the cloud. 

It is compatible with multi-cloud environments, so it can manage AWS and GPC solutions to provide companies with better management of their clouds.  

Oracle

Oracle's differential is the adaptive intelligence that allows for identifying market trends, generating a competitive advantage. Supplying a more personalized service is also possible to improve the customer experience. 

GCP

It stands out for easing innovation for organizations because it supplies the latest tools to work on AI, machine learning, and Big Data projects.  

In terms of security, it has end-to-end encryption to reduce cyber-attack chances. 

Another of its advantages is restoring data in a noticeably short time compared to other providers. 

Top Cloud Migration Challenges

Moving to the cloud is a solution to a number of challenges. So, here are the most prevalent cloud migration problems and their solutions:

Data Security and Compliance Risks

Data safety and compliance risks remain among organizations' top cloud migration security challenges. These risks can emanate from data breaches during the migration or weak access control over sensitive enterprise data. 

Solution

While cloud services are inherently secure, it will help if you pass your data through a safe path inside the firewall when migrating it. You can add an extra layer of assurance by encrypting the data and ensuring that your strategy follows industry compliance standards.

Uncertain Cost of the Cloud Migration Process

Although a successful cloud migration can cut IT operating costs in the long haul, the biggest challenge arises when estimating the upfront investment. This cost can shoot up the roof when other indirect project expenses come into play. This includes costs for transforming the organization for cloud computing and the vacated data center capacity fees. 

Solution

You can prevail over this uncertainty by planning carefully with your service providers and factoring in the hidden migration costs in the budget. Overall, you are looking at the following cloud migration costs: 

Pre-migration 

• Consultations 
• On-premise data management 
• Database upgrade 

Migration 

• The project itself
• Refactoring 
• Application and code changes 

Post-migration

• A monthly or yearly license 
• System maintenance 

Wrong Cloud Migration Strategy

You may encounter various cloud migration challenges if your team doesn'tdoesn't deliberate on a well-hatched plan. Many get it wrong—that planning is all about anticipating migration bottlenecks and creating remediation contingencies, forgetting to focus on understanding the current infrastructure and target cloud. 

Solution

With that in mind, you would want to devise a well-thought strategy that covers all intricate approaches to successful migration, such as app modernization and platform refactoring. A thorough assessment of the current infrastructure must be conducted to optimize cloud performance.

No Internal Capacity to Perform the Cloud Migration–Skill Gap

Switching to a cloud computing environment means deploying new technologies, processes, or third-party integrations. In most cases, your current employees may lack the necessary skills and qualifications to fulfill IT roles under the new infrastructure and don'tdon't fail the process. 

Solution

You can overcome this barrier by hiring an experienced cloud migration company to assist with the process and upskill your team. The experts will determine the right strategy that complements a smooth transition process with everyone on board. Alternatively, you can hire fresh talents to fill the new IT positions.

Migration Complexities

Your organization can experience a cloud migration challenge if you underestimate the project's complexity. For example, some organizations think they can port legacy software to the cloud as it is. This can lead to severe downtime and loss of critical functionalities, leading to unhappy customers and lost productivity.

Solution

To overcome this challenge, you need to assess your current infrastructure to identify any compatibility issues or dependencies that could impact your migration, create a roadmap outlining the migration process, and choose the right cloud provider to meet your business needs.

Low Application Performance After Migration

One of the most overlooked post-cloud migration problems is low performance after migration. Legacy systems often feature several components hosted on multiple servers, which lowers their flexibility when migrated to the cloud. At the same time, on-demand computing solutions come with varying storage options and services – it'sit's elementary for legacy systems to face performance issues.  

Solution

Application performance challenges can be addressed through cloud capacity planning. This process analyzes and measures the performance of your applications against predictive demand. With this approach, your team can provide and allot the resources needed to meet that specific demand.

Network Bandwidth

You can also experience database migration to cloud challenges if you don'tdon't specifically define the network bandwidth requirements of cloud-powered applications. Typically, these applications should match or exceed the performance of on-premise deployments. You need to describe the bandwidth requirements accurately so that the migrated applications will experience latency, resulting in poor user experience and unmet business requirements. 

Solution

You can solve this problem by factoring in network constraints before migration with the help of network technology modeling tools. This will help you evaluate current application performance to determine areas that need improvement before the migration process.

Cloud Environment Adoption Resistance

Employees may feel that cloud adoption will reduce their control over data and processes, leading them to resist the change. Resistance toward change is common, and switching to a cloud computing environment means more change and disruption around processes, systems, or leadership. 

Solution

Train your employees on the new cloud environment and the tools and processes used. To ensure everyone is okay and ready for the new IT strategy, develop a change management plan and implement it before, during, and after the migration. Also, involve them in the cloud adoption process and address their concerns. This is supposed to smooth out difficulties.

Final thoughts

So, moving to the cloud is still gonna be super important for businesses in 2023. But it's not all smooth sailing - there are some big challenges to tackle if you wanna make a move successfully. First up, companies gotta take a good look at what they've already got in place and figure out which bits can make a move to the cloud. Once they know that, they need to make a solid plan for the migration, keeping security, performance, cost, and vendor lock-in on top of mind. Oh, and it's a good idea to bring in some cloud migration experts to help out too. With the right planning, execution, and ongoing management, businesses can enjoy all the sweet benefits of cloud computing while keeping the risks and challenges to a minimum.